"Syntheotics"

"The wind is old and still at play While I must hurry upon my way, 
 For I am running to Paradise".

Y B Yeats 
 As Quoted in Oliver Stone's, 'Wild Palms'.

It's a day of strong delusions.
The 'fakery' of what people can now put on screen and make the well known say has reached a new level this year, and whilst some of the voices aren't quite there yet, they're getting close. We're not far away from the point where we'll be able to get someone to say anything and you won't know if they really said it or not.

Back in the 90's, Bruce Wagner wrote a series of near future stories in which a power-hungry senator merged television, holography and narcotics to begin a new religion which allowed people to engage with three dimensional environments to manufacture their own reality. Wild Palms was the televised rendition of the basic idea, and focused on a culture war between those who wanted to use the need of the masses to make themselves virtual gods (the fathers), and the resistance (friends) who struggle against massive odds to show people the truth.

The fascinating connection between these two forms of projection is the growth of our buying into illusion whilst deeper, harder truths are marginalized.

What's true of culture is also mirrored in trends in theology.

I recall, some years ago, talking to a friend who, after spending several years in learning, had turned from his faith to atheism. His argument to me was that Paul (the Apostle) simply couldn't be trusted - his assessment of the historical worth and pivotal role of Adam in the history of mankind was at best mistaken and at worse comprehensively misleading. My response, in respect to the anthropology was the jury is still out, but in regards to theology, without that (Paul's) 'gravitational pull' in respect to Adam, the entire weight of the Biblical view would indeed be little more than a string of untuned notions in collision with each other(1)

It's the significance of what scripture actually states to us on a spectrum of vital issues that makes their message imperative, but the prevalent thinking today is that there is no cohesive and clear 'word' given by the Bible - it's a far more nuanced procedure of picking out what is deemed relevant in respect to current pluralistic aspirations than seeking to understand what's stated in its own terms. To take scripture plainly, in other words, as Luther and others instructed in most cases, is deemed foolish and lacks any voice in our present climate.

One area where this has been particularly true of late is the theology of the atonement, and particularly with respect to Christ's substitution for us, which has been defined as a relatively 'modern' development in Christianity.

In his work, The Crucified King, after making an exhaustive analysis of the books of Isaiah and Mark to show how integral substitution is to the biblical message, Jeremy treat notes how contemporary "surveys of the doctrine of the atonement typically sweep through church history", assigning he notes particular theories to various ages in an almost hermetically sealed fashion, but the reality is very different. Anselm, for example, speaking of recapitulation, victory and substitution all in one brief statement concerning the magnitude of the work of Christ's death, and such statements are clearly present in various key theologians of different periods. That is because they are merely seeking to express something of the scope of the meaning provided by scripture.

 Do we see what is at stake here? If we truncate our approach to what the Bible is actually seeking to say to us to the supposedly wide (but in effect deaf) interpretations of our time, we will, in effect, miss the truth entirely and find ourselves, like the peddlers of syntheotics in Wild Palms, given over to the strength of our own delusion.

The scriptures speak very clearly on issues such as our fallen state and its ramifications, the redemptive work of God in Christ and the nature and message of the good news that comes to us through Jesus Christ. These truths cannot be marginalized without us loosing the very essence of the faith and our becoming muted in our message to the world.

God calls us in Christ to seek something deeper than the 'suitable', convenient and soothing to itching ears - to comprehend truths that are deep and mysterious because they address the full nature of what is real in respect to both our Creator and the estate we presently inhabit.

Time to see the illusions for what they are and return to the essential nature of our faith.

(1) A useful work on this whole subject is 'Adam, the Fall and Original Sin', edited by Hans Madueme and Michael Reeves.